On This Day: The infamous ‘Fan Man’ gatecrashed the Riddick Bowe vs Evander Holyfield rematch

Evander holyfield

BOXING has never seen a stranger incident. About a minute into the seventh round of Riddick Boweโ€™s rematch with Evander Holyfield at the open-air Caesars Palace arena in Las Vegas on November 6, 1993, a โ€œlunatic parasailerโ€ crash-landed ringside to create โ€œthe most dramatic occasion in the history of boxing,โ€ according to Harry Mullanโ€™s ringside report.

James Miller, 30, disturbed what was a โ€œmagnificent championship battleโ€ for Boweโ€™s WBA and IBF heavyweight titles. The delay took 22 minutes, and MC Michael Buffer kept the crowd of 14,242 calm by talking to them throughout.

When the action continued, Holyfield worked toward another unforeseen event by outpointing Bowe on a majority decision to become only the third man in history to regain world heavyweight honours, with Floyd Patterson and Muhammad Ali being the first two.

evander holyfield

Holyfieldโ€™s performance in a thrilling fight made the night โ€œunforgettable anyway,โ€ besides Millerโ€™s bizarre intervention.

Bowe had unanimously outpointed Holyfield the year before, leading Evander to be considered as the underdog heading into the rematch.

However, under new trainer Emanuel Steward, the 31-year-old outboxed and outgunned a โ€œbloatedโ€ Bowe by sticking to a measured game plan, and the pair tried to continue scrapping after the final bell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tk5WksMdm0

The third and final chapter of their fierce trilogy happened two years later, when Bowe became the first man to stop ‘The Real Deal’ Holyfield.

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